With restitution finally paid, a former treasurer for a Hilton Head POA who was caught embezzling over $200,000 from the association’s reserve accounts will dodge jail time with a three-month probation sentence. The woman siphoned funds from the community for more than four years without raising any eyebrows.
Patricia Butville, 69, pleaded guilty June 6 to two felony counts of fraud. Beaufort County judicial records say she had paid back all of the money she owed, totaling about $220,000.
Other board members found out about the treasurer’s mass theft in April 2023 and informed residents in writing two months later. The letter accused Butville of slowly issuing checks to herself starting in December 2018 while falsifying financial reports to hide the discrepancies.
Butville was sole signatory for the Broad Pointe POA’s non-audited reserve accounts, which were used for large projects like repairs and natural disaster insurance funds. After the embezzlement came to light, board members put the financial reports under the management of the Indigo Run Association, whose accounts are fully audited.
POA leadership initially decided not to pursue criminal charges that summer because Butville had already returned over $150,000 by the end of July, according to previous reporting. She had also signed a confession of judgment, legally requiring her to return the money by the end of June 2024.
But in a reversal from board members, Butville was arrested in early December after an additional $22,000 of missing funds came to light.
Court records show Butville’s first unauthorized withdrawl from the POA was in the amount of $8,000 on Dec. 12, 2018, when she was not a member of the board and should not have had access to the reserve account. From then on, she withdrew money about once or twice per month, with amounts ranging from $90 to $15,000.
Butville served as secretary in 2012 and 2013 and as the board’s president in 2014, but did not fill any leadership position from 2015 to 2018. Her new tenure as treasurer began in 2019, lasting until her 2023 resignation.
Broad Pointe POA’s financials are now back in positive territory. In the year since leadership first discovered the theft, the organization’s account balance rose from $157.05 to over $208,000, which is now accruing interest. “There is never a feeling of joy or victory even with a good outcome such as this,” board members wrote in a June 11 email to residents, “but we are truly fortunate and much wiser for this experience.”
Source Agencies
